The Strong
An elder of Wudang.
Hyeonhyeon-ja, Baek Cho Jin-in, had spent his youth living in the shadows of Mount Wudang.
He himself had slain countless enemies of Wudang from within that darkness.
And in the course of those endless journeys, he had met any number of the strong.
Yet even among those strong, there were some Hyeonhyeon-ja had seen with his own eyes and judged to be overwhelmingly superior—men and women one could call Supreme without the slightest exaggeration.
The first he would name was…
The current head of the Hwangbo Family, the Undying Undefeated Tyrant.
An old empress who, while still young, had slaughtered every one of her brothers and sisters to seize the family headship for herself, and who to this day—decades later—still ruled the Hwangbo Family with an iron fist.
“Hyeonhyeon-ja.”
She had never once permitted Baek Cho Jin-in to approach closer than a certain distance.
“I will not allow you to come any nearer than that.”
It was not because she feared his infamous name. It was simply that, at that precise range, she could suppress him most ideally.
No matter who her opponent was, she never let her guard down. She never underestimated anyone. She never neglected her training in the pursuit of power, nor did she neglect power while lost in the study of martial arts.
Perhaps this is what a true ruler looks like, Hyeonhyeon-ja had thought.
“You always work so hard.”
“Not at all.”
While she carefully read and reread a largely content-free personal letter from the Wudang Sect Leader, Hyeonhyeon-ja ran hundreds of scenarios through his mind.
Not once, in any of those calculations, did his sword ever reach the old empress.
As always.
“Come to think of it,” she said, turning to him, “have you heard any news of that old man?”
“I have.”
“They say he abandoned even the family headship and shut himself away in some back room. Tsk, tsk.”
She clicked her tongue and sent a mocking smile toward her lifelong rival.
“That’s why I personally advised that old fool not to collide with the Sword House.”
There was only one old man she could mean.
The Namgung Family.
And he was the second Supreme Hyeonhyeon-ja had met in person.
The Sword King of the Uncrowned Throne.
Former head of the Namgung Family, a master of the previous generation who had long since withdrawn from the front lines.
In the past, when the father of the Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon—then head of the Sword House—was campaigning in the south, every martial artist in the Central Plains had fixed their eyes on whether a duel between the Sword House head and the Sword King would take place.
“Who, truly, is the greatest swordsman of the age…!”
On one side, the head of the Luoyang Sword House of that era, whose every step seemed the living embodiment of the word hegemony.
On the other, the Sword King of the Namgung Family—a name no one in the Central Plains who wielded a sword had not heard.
Yet—
“The Sword King of the Namgung Family has avoided the fight!”
In the end, throughout the war against the Luoyang Sword House, the Sword King never once showed himself. Thereafter he earned the humiliating moniker Sword King of the Uncrowned Throne, and the Namgung Family, defeated by the Luoyang Sword House, suffered a catastrophic loss of prestige.
Having known the Sword King from his own youth, Hyeonhyeon-ja could only find the outcome regrettable.
“Sword King, sir.”
He had once asked about that day.
“Why did you avoid a duel with the head of the Sword House back then?”
With his back turned, the Sword King had answered indifferently.
“I am no longer young enough to throw myself recklessly into a contest whose outcome is already obvious.”
Among all the people Hyeonhyeon-ja had met until that moment, none had reached the Sword King’s level. The answer had been that shocking.
“By that you mean—?”
Gazing at the sword hanging on the wall, the Sword King had continued.
“Call me by whatever humiliating name you like. Point your fingers if you wish.”
The old martial artist whose back had already begun to stoop possessed eyes that burned a fierce blue.
“But the Namgung Family—”
“I care nothing for whatever name the Namgung Family is called.”
“……?!”
Having cast aside even the headship, having cast off all power and wealth, only one thing remained to the old man.
“I will live even like this. One day I will surpass that sword.”
It was pure fighting spirit and pure madness so intense that even Hyeonhyeon-ja—who had lived his life on the knife-edge of death—felt a chill.
And then the third.
The current leader of Sa-pae-cheon. Master of Mara Nachal.
The man elected to replace the previous leader whose head had been taken by the then-head of the Luoyang Sword House. The one who, after Sa-pae-cheon’s defeat, had raised the alliance to its present height.
And he—
“It is a curious thing to see Hyeonhyeon-ja of Wudang walk in through the front door instead of a window.”
Like the king of a nation, a giant seated upon a high seat that could only be called a throne had looked down upon him.
“Have you abandoned the ambush and chosen a frontal confrontation?”
Eyes that glowed like coals seething inside a brazier curved with amusement.
“…Mount Wudang ordered that if I could not eliminate you, I was to establish amicable relations between Wudang and Sa-pae-cheon. I am merely following that directive.”
The leader of Sa-pae-cheon was the first—and last—person who had ever forced Hyeonhyeon-ja, Baek Cho Jin-in, to abandon a mission.
“Interesting.”
To their final meeting, the man never once kept a weapon near at hand. Yet until the very end, Hyeonhyeon-ja could find not a single opening, not the slightest gap, in him.
“Is the Alliance Leader well?” the leader asked at the last.
“…The Alliance Leader?”
“Who else would this seat be curious about, if not the Leader of the Martial Alliance?”
The leader grinned.
“After the Martial Alliance dissolved, we lost contact. I was simply wondering what he has been up to lately.”
Though the leader spoke as if they were close, Hyeonhyeon-ja knew full well the two were bitter enemies.
“…The former Alliance Leader—”
Ordinarily he would never have answered. But the Martial Alliance was gone. Hyeonhyeon-ja no longer had any reason to keep faith with it.
“I heard recently that he has agreed to teach the Third Young Master of the Sword House.”
“Ho…?”
And that man was the fourth Supreme Hyeonhyeon-ja had met.
The last Leader of the Martial Alliance. Current successor of the single-lineage Jeonjin-pa.
There had never been any particular friendship between the former Martial Alliance Leader and Hyeonhyeon-ja. Yet assessing the condition of any strong figure who might one day threaten Wudang was also part of his duty.
“—In that case,” Hyeonhyeon-ja had asked, “will the Third Young Master of the Sword House become the next successor of Jeonjin-pa?”
After long consideration, the former Alliance Leader answered with the weight of stone.
“…His talent is sufficient.”
Jeonjin-pa was a single-lineage transmission; only one disciple ever received the inheritance, so its numbers were always utterly inferior to the great sects. Even so, the name of a single Jeonjin master had always equaled the names of ten thousand martial artists. Those words meant the Third Young Master’s talent was extraordinary.
“A genius, then.”
“Indeed.”
The former Alliance Leader nodded heavily. He had always been such a man—like a mountain range when still, like a living volcano when he moved. Born into the right age, he might have made the Martial Alliance greater than any before or since.
“Yet his killing intent is far too dense.”
“Perhaps,” Hyeonhyeon-ja had speculated calmly, “because he is a child born of that bloodline after the Namgung Family’s defeat, he carries a sense of inferiority.”
“Perhaps so.”
As always, the man was sparing with his words.
“Did the Sword House not offer you a position, Alliance Leader?”
“I refused.”
“…I see.”
Unexpectedly, he added something more.
“I teach the Third Young Master not only because of my friendship with his mother. Perhaps… with this child, he may reach a realm I myself never attained.”
Hyeonhyeon-ja asked, stunned.
“…A realm even you, Alliance Leader, never reached?”
“I—”
Turning his back and lifting his face to the sky, the Alliance Leader said,
“I have seen a sword that parts the heavens.”
The direction he turned was toward the deepest recesses of the Sword House, where the Grand Elder of the Luoyang Sword House was known to dwell in seclusion.
Without thinking, Hyeonhyeon-ja murmured,
“…The First Sword Under Heaven.”
The Grand Elder of the Luoyang Sword House—and the one figure about whom every Supreme previously mentioned had invariably asked for news.
“Lastly.”
Even the Undying Undefeated Tyrant—
“Any information to share regarding the head of the Sword House?”
Even the Sword King of the Uncrowned Throne—
“If you ever learn anything new about the head of the Sword House, you may come to me at any time.”
Even the Master of Mara Nachal—
“Have you ever met him yourself?”
—had asked about him.
Yet by a curious twist of fate, while meeting all those peerless masters of the realm, Hyeonhyeon-ja, Baek Cho Jin-in, had never once laid eyes upon the First Sword Under Heaven himself.
What was so special about the First Sword Under Heaven?
What made those Supremes so obsessed with him?
Just what, exactly—
was the First Sword Under Heaven?
And now, in the present—
“Cough…!”
Hyeonhyeon-ja, Baek Cho Jin-in, spat blood.
A chill settled over his body. How long had it been since he last felt cold enough to make his flesh tremble after reaching his present realm?
The disciples’ panicked sound transmissions scrambled the old man’s ears.
Kneeling on the wet ground, retching fragments of his own entrails, Baek Cho Jin-in gathered the last of his inner power and sent a transmission.
“……!”
At those words, Steel Dragon Fang Baek Cheong’s body flinched—visible even through Hyeonhyeon-ja’s dimming eyes.
That young pup.
He had always disliked Steel Dragon Fang Baek Cheong. From the way the boy, still so young, had been called a once-in-a-generation genius of Wudang and taken as disciple by the previous Sect Leader; from the way he always ran wild trying to prove himself; even from the way he still charged about without enough experience—nothing about him had ever been pleasing.
And yet—
Wudang’s future—every sacrifice he had endlessly offered up in the deep shadows of Mount Wudang—existed for young people like that.
Pssshhhhh—!
With the last dregs of his internal energy wrung dry, he forced his true-origin true qi into a rampage. Every meridian twisted and flushed crimson; steam erupted from his pores.
Crackle-crack—!
Bones throughout his body were forcibly realigned by muscles gone berserk.
“Ghk—!”
In the thousand-year history of Wudang, many Taoists had made the wrong choice in haste, chasing higher attainment. The final means he now employed—the Nine Yin Reverse Heaven Art—was one such product of those mistakes.
A forbidden Wudang technique that burns the user’s innate true qi to temporarily gain explosive power.
“…So you intend to burn every last scrap of your innate true qi.”
As expected, the Eldest Young Master had seen through the method at a glance.
Baek Cho Jin-in gave a short nod. With heavy steps he moved to block the direction leading toward Steel Dragon Fang Baek Cheong.
“Eldest Young Master.”
The Eldest Young Master did not rashly pursue Baek Cheong. Somehow—he had correctly gauged the power of the Nine Yin Reverse Heaven Art.
“Speak.”
Or perhaps it was simply respect for the final moments of Hyeonhyeon-ja, the assassin of Wudang who had once dominated an entire generation.
“I have lived my entire life in darkness.”
His plan to spend even the remaining years of his life as a Grand Elder of Wudang in the light had come to nothing. But that no longer mattered.
“And I am still dying in darkness. So at the very least—”
The Eldest Young Master waited calmly for him to finish.
“—let me die as a martial artist at the end.”
The Swordless One.
Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon was, without doubt, one of the Supremes Hyeonhyeon-ja had met.
No—not merely one of them.
Perhaps—
“Very well.”
The Eldest Young Master brought forward the hand that had been clasped behind his back and raised it before him.
“I shall send you on your way with the finest sword I possess.”
That day, those who kept vigil through the night in Shenyang saw a single sword that split the thick clouds and laid bare the dawn sky with perfect clarity.